the spectacle of Colonel Stuart running a race, with a drum before him, singing lustily a camp song as he rode. In a number of octavo volumes the reader will find an account of the great career of Major-General Stuart-this was Colonel Jeb Stuart on the outpost.

And now if the worthy reader is in that idle, unexacting mood so dear to chroniclers, I beg he will listen while I speak of another "trifling incident" occurring on the same day, which had a rather amusing result. In return for the introduction accorded me to the captive, I offered to make the young Colonel acquainted with a charming friend of my own, whom I had known before his arrival at the place; and as he acquiesced with ready pleasure, we proceeded to a house in the village, where Colonel Stuart was duly presented to Miss. The officer and the young lady very soon thereafter became close friends, for she was passionately Southern-and a few words will present succinctly the result.

In the winter of 1862, Colonel Mosby made a raid into Fairfax, entered the Court-House at night, and captured General Stoughton and his staff-bringing out the prisoners and a number of fine horses safely. This exploit of the partisan greatly enraged the Federal authorities; and Miss, having been denounced by Union residents as Mosby's "private friend" and pilot on the occasion-which Colonel Mosby assured me was an entire error-she was arrested, her trunks searched, and the prisoner and her papers conveyed to Washington. Here she was examined on the charge of complicity in Mosby's raid; but nothing appeared against her, and she was in a fair way to be released, when all at once a terrible proof of her guilt was discovered. Among the papers taken from the young lady's trunk was found the following document. This was the "damning record" which left no further doubt of her guilt.

I print the paper verbatim et literatim, suppressing only the full name of the lady:

"To all Whom it May Concern:

"KNOW YE, That reposing special confidence in the patriotism, fidelity, and ability of Antonia J., I, James E. B. Stuart, by virtue of the power vested in me as Brigadier-General of the Provisional Army of the Confederate States of America, do hereby appoint and commission her my honorary Aide-deCamp, to rank as such from this date. She will be obeyed, respected, and admired by all true lovers of a noble nature.

"Given under my hand and seal at the Headquarters Cavalry Brigade, at Camp Beverly, the 7th October, A. D. 1861, and the first year of our independence.

"By the General:

"L. Tiernan Brien, A. A. G."

"J. E. B. STUART.

Such was the fatal document discovered in Miss —'s trunk, the terrible proof of her treason! The poor girl was committed to the Old Capitol Prison as a secret commissioned emissary of the Confederate States Government, was kept for several months, and when she was released and sent South to Richmond, where I saw her, she was as thin and white as a ghostthe mere shadow of her former self.

All that cruelty had resulted from a jest-from the harmless pleasantry of a brave soldier in those bright October days of 1861!

V.

A DESERTER.

I.

Or all human faculties, surely the most curious is the memory. Capricious, whimsical, illogical, acting ever in accordance with its own wild will, it loses so many "important events" to retain the veriest trifles in its deathless clutch! Ask a soldier who has fought all day long in some world-losing battle, what he remembers most vividly, and he will tell you that he has well-nigh forgotten the most desperate charges, but recalls with perfect distinctness the joy he experienced in swallowing a mouthful of water from the canteen on the body of a dead enemy.

A trifling incident of the second battle of Manassas remains in my memory more vividly than the hardest fighting of the whole day, and I never recall the incident in question without thinking, too, of De Quincey's singular paper, "A Vision of Sudden Death." The reader is probably familiar with the arti cle to which I refer-a very curious one, and not the least admirable of those strange leaves, full of thought and fancy, which the "Opium Eater" scattered among the readers of the last generation. He was riding on the roof of a stage-coach, when the vehicle commenced the descent of a very steep hill. Soon it began moving with mad velocity, the horses became unmanageable, and it was obvious that if it came in collision with anything, either it or the object which it struck would be dashed in pieces. All at once, there appeared in front, on the

narrow road, a light carriage, in which were seated a young man and a girl. They either did not realize their danger, or were powerless to avoid it; and on swept the heavy stage, with its load of passengers, its piled-up baggage, and its maddened horses-rushing straight down on the frail vehicle with which it soon came in collision. It was at the moment when the light little affair was dashed to pieces, the stage rolling with a wild crash over the boy and girl, that De Quincey saw in their awestruck faces that singular expression which he has described by the phrase, "A Vision of Sudden Death."

It requires some courage to intrude upon the literary domain of that great master, the "Opium Eater," and the comparison will prove dangerous; but a reader here and there may be interested in a vision of sudden death which I myself once saw in a human eye. On the occasion in question, a young, weakminded, and timid person was instantaneously confronted, without premonition or suspicion of his danger, with the abrupt prospect of an ignominious death; and I think the great English writer would have considered my incident more stirring than his own.

It was on the morning of August 31, 1862, on the Warrenton road, in a little skirt of pines, near Cub Run bridge, between Manassas and Centreville. General Pope, who previously had "only seen the backs of his enemies," had been cut to pieces. The battle-ground which had witnessed the defeat of Scott and McDowell on the 21st of July, 1861, had now again been swept by the bloody besom of war; and the Federal forces were once more in full retreat upon Washington. The infantry of the Southern army were starved, broken down, utterly exhausted, when they went into that battle, but they carried everything before them; and the enemy had disappeared, thundering with their artillery to cover their retreat. The rest of the work must be done by the cavalry; and to the work in question the great cavalier Stuart addressed himself with the energy, dash, and vigour of his character. The scene, as we went on, was curious. Pushing across the battle-field-we had slept at "Fairview," the Conrad House on the maps-we saw upon every side the reeking traces

of the bloody conflict; and as the column went on across Bull Run, following the enemy on their main line of retreat over the road from Stonebridge to Centreville, the evidences of "demoralization" and defeat crowded still more vividly upon the eye. Guns, haversacks, oil-cloths, knapsacks, abandoned cannon and broken-down wagons and ambulances,-all the debris of an army, defeated and hastening to find shelter behind its worksattracted the attention now, as in July, 1861, when the first "On to Richmond" was so unfortunate. Prisoners were picked up on all sides as the cavalry pushed on; their horses, if they were mounted, were taken possession of; their sabres, guns, and pistols appropriated with the ease and rapidity of long practice; and the prisoners were sent in long strings under one or two mounted men, as a guard, to the rear.

As we approached Cub Run bridge, over which the rear-guard of the Federal army had just retired, we found by the roadside a small wooden house used as a temporary hospital. It was full of dead and wounded; and I remember that the "Hospital steward" who attended the Federal wounded was an imposing personage. Portly, bland, “dignified,” elegantly dressed, he was as splendid as a major-general; nay, far more so than any gray major-general of the present writer's acquaintance. Our tall and finely-clad friend yielded up his surplus ambulances with grace ful ease, asked for further orders; and when soon his own friends from across Cub Run began to shell the place, philosophically took his stand behind the frail mansion and "awaited further developments" with the air of a man who was resigned to the fortunes of war. Philosophic steward of the portly person! if you see this page it will bring back to you that lively scene when the present writer conversed with you and found you so composed and "equal to the occasion," even amid the shell and bullets!

But I am expending too much attention upon my friend the surgeon, who "held the position" there with such philosophic coolness. The cavalry, headed by General Stuart, pushed on, and we were now nearly at Cub Run bridge. The main body of the enemy had reached Centreville during the preceding